Hymns and Lullabies
by Black Dracus
Summary: Because in Spira, there isn't much difference. Written for LJ community notagain again


This one goes out to Anzer'ke, whose review of _The Eyes Have It_ reminded me I had posted this on LJ, but not here.

Hymns and Lullabies

_Pray, saviour.  
Dream, Child of Prayer.  
Forever and ever.  
Bring us peace._

_ --translation of the Hymn of the Faith, ffx_

His suspicions are aroused while the party is trapped beneath the ice of Macalania. Any other time he might not have noticed the furrowing of her brow or the telling stillness of her hands, resting softly on her knees like birds curling up to sleep, tired after a day of flight. His senses are heightened today, however; he is keyed up from the fight with Seymour, so much so that he finds himself asking after the source of her woe before he even realizes the words are in his throat.

She cites worry over Yuna and turns her face back to the shadowy surface above them, the chimes of the Hymn falling over them both like rain, not quite liquid enough to wash away the lie.

--

The destruction of Home would have pleased him, before. As a monk, the eradication of the Al Bhed had been one of his highest callings, a duty to Yevon. Now, even though the Al Bhed have tried to kidnap his summoner, all he can feel for them is a kind of distant pity as he watches them curl up in the corners of the airship. He knows now that Yevon is merciless and afraid, and that these people hold the tools to build the future Yuna will lay the foundations for with her defiance.

He walks the halls and tries to pretend he isn't searching for Rikku. His sick attraction to her is something he's trying to fight. It's wrong for so many reasons, reasons that have implanted themselves in his head, a constant sermon on age and death and responsibility that at this moment he is trying desperately to remember. It's being overpowered by the memory of her argument with Wakka, the memory of her tears, and though for the moment he is free of guilt this new litany is no less disturbing.

--

Lately he has been recalling a conversation he had with Braska once, during one of the torturously cold nights ascending Gagazet. He had asked Braska if he wished that he had never married, never had a child, when his time with them was so limited. It had seemed to Auron a horrible mess on all counts, this sacrifice, this wasted life.

"Love is never a waste." Braska had replied calmly, closing his eyes in weariness at this conversation they kept repeating. It took a long time for Auron to realize he was talking about two things at once, two kinds of love, and it is only now, when he has found both, that Auron sees he was right.

--

He finds her curled up on one of the beds above the bar, all the lights in the place dimmed low and the merchant gone. Outside, a sky beginning to fill with stars falls in a darkling swoop to meet the lighter churning of the sea. They are passing to Bevelle, will arrive in the morning, hopefully in time to save Yuna from that awful fate they had all witnessed on the sphere.

"I didn't think it would be you coming up here." she says, sitting up and wiping her eyes, the exposed lengths of her arms and legs golden in the shallow light. He senses from her small smile and the twisting of her fingers that she is pleased by his presence. This pleases him too, and as is happening far too often lately, he sits down near her on the bed without his own permission, his body jerking free of his mind to answer desires and callings that were supposed to be lost to the dead.

--

He tells himself he will stay for a few moments, two minutes at most—to loiter longer would be both inappropriate and torturous. He comes to the second conclusion when she stretches out across the bed in a kind of comma, hands curled loosely near her face, and asks him to, of all things, sing her to sleep. He only knows one song, and to sing her that would be patently ridiculous. When he says so, she murmurs something under her breath and gives him a look so smoldering with innuendo that he finds his rusted voice creaking out the Hymn before he gives in and touches her the way he's been aching to for weeks. She's an odd thing, half child and half woman, and he decides to give in to the child. Safer.

--

He has to sing it three times, a soft rumbling loop, before her bloodshot eyes finally close. He is momentarily afraid as he stands that someone will be standing below, eavesdropping, but there is no smirking Tidus or chastising Lulu and so he descends back to the elevator, schooling his face into a mask of indifference as he presses the button for the bridge and reflecting that Braska would have found this whole situation hilarious, and Jecht would have died laughing ages ago.


End file.
